


Speak for the Silent

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Series: The Thinker, The Feeler [10]
Category: Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Anger, Arson, Balloons, Bathing/Washing, Body Paint, Bullying, Cybertronian, Disrespect, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Science, Emergency Response, Emotional Constipation, Emotionally Repressed, Evidence, Explanations, Hurt/Comfort, Illegal Activities, In Public, Investigations, Loyalty, Mid-Canon, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Past Abuse, Payback, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Private Conversations, Protective Older Brothers, Protectiveness, Public Relations, Rants, Robots In Disguise, Speeches, Teenage Rebellion, Teenagers, Tourism, Trash Burning, Undercover Missions, Vandalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 19:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4576962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it comes to keeping their undercover status intact, Chase is great about turning the other cheek-plate for the humans. Then laws are broken and Chase's identity is dishonored in one fell swoop... Needless to say, cheek-turning isn't on the schedule.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak for the Silent

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Enclosed briefly in the story is a headcanon credited to [delkios](http://delkios.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. I suggest you read that story first but it's not severely mandatory. If you want to read the headcanon, go [here](http://delkios.tumblr.com/tagged/rescue-bots) and look for "Everything's Alright".
> 
> If you want the short version, it's that some Bots have been part of scientific experiments which dampen their emotions to make them "more objective", but it just makes it hard for them to understand abstract ideas like "fun" or "joy" or "hate". Some of these Bots develop anxiety problems, obsessiveness, perfectionism, etc.
> 
> Cybertronian Translations  
> ::J’xiw j’qir bye:: = You are nobody's fool  
> ::Du aakriron:: = You're a fighter

“Stay away from them, okay, Code?”

Careful to keep his expression neutral since he was out in the open, Heatwave glanced down toward Kade, who had a hand on Cody’s shoulder and was staring pointedly at a few older boys some yards away.

“Why? They’re just some tourists, Kade.”

“Exactly. They look like trouble.” Kade sounded unusually serious as he spoke, prompting Heatwave to follow his gaze, his optics contracting so he could study the trio. Two of them were laughing at something the third had said, passing cigarettes around and kicking at the grass. Heatwave had seen many Cybertronian troublemakers during his lifetime and though the human race looked far different, these three were somehow the same.

Before he could finish that train of thought, sirens caught Heatwave’s attention. In his peripheral vision he saw Chief Burns and Chase approaching in vehicle mode.

“Police Bot, join the Fire Bot and stand ready,” Chief instructed as he got out and beckoned Kade and Cody over to him.

“Acknowledged,” Chase droned, transforming and marching stiffly toward Heatwave’s position. It sent a thorn of anger driving into Heatwave’s spark, more potent than usual. He _hated_ this part they had to play. They were not automatons. Why couldn’t anyone just accept that graciously?

Chase halted shoulder to shoulder with him, staring straight ahead.

“How are you, Chase?” Heatwave muttered in a pedal tone.

“We must not risk our identities by conversing, Heatwave,” Chase murmured back solemnly before snapping his visor over his green optics, obscuring them. Heatwave growled through his engine and followed suit.

All seemed in readiness for the mayor’s latest longwinded speech, Heatwave decided, watching a crowd gather around the podium. _Although, I wonder how long they’ll be willing to stand out in this heat_ …

Mayor Luskey opened his speech as usual, cracking a joke that actually made the townspeople laugh, though Heatwave didn’t understand it. He didn’t have time to puzzle it out, for under the cover of the laughter, four sticky _splats_ sounded in succession immediately to his right. It took all of Heatwave’s willpower not to whirl around and look, especially when he felt Chase’s EM field fluctuate. For a Bot of Chase’s passive temperament, it was a fairly strong oscillation too, but no one had noticed whatever had happened.

By the end of the mayor’s talk, Heatwave was almost shaking in the effort not to move, to check his teammate over and make sure all was well.

Fortunately, Chief Burns turned at that moment and cried, “Hey!” Pointing toward Chase— _What is he pointing at?_ Heatwave wondered frantically—Chief Burns approached, demanding, “Who did this?!” When there were confused, concerned murmurs from the crowd, Chief squared his shoulders and launched into a stern speech of his own about—

 _Vandalism?_ Heatwave echoed mutely. _Who did what?_ Now that all eyes were in his vicinity, he definitely couldn’t turn. _Optimus, why were we given such an_ infuriating _mission?!_ Finally each of the Burns family went to their Bots, ordering their transformations. In the guise of turning to accommodate Kade’s entry, Heatwave was able to get a glance of his SIC.

Thick paint, orange and pink and neon green, was dribbling down the dome of Chase’s chest, mingling into a disgusting color Heatwave couldn’t even name. His wrath at the sight billowed up so quickly that he had to manually disengage his vocalizer before speeding off toward the firehouse.

“Whoa!” Kade yelped, seizing the steering wheel. “Heatwave, what’s gotten into you?!”

“Not here,” Heatwave snapped as soon as his vocals rebooted, his tires screeching on the pavement as he cut the turns toward home.

—

“Chief, I’m certain it was those tourists!” Heatwave protested angrily, doubling his fists. “Everyone in this town has been saved by Chase a million times; none of them would dare do that to him! Why would they even _want_ to?!”

“I’m sorry, Heatwave, but no one saw those three do it—not even you—and you don’t have any evidence to support it,” Chief Burns countered, sounding genuinely apologetic. “Believe me, I want to find those responsible too, but I have to say I don’t know why you’re having such a strong reaction to it.”

“Those tourists—” At Chief’s raised eyebrow, Heatwave shuttered his optics, ex-vented carefully and revised, “ _Someone_ …assaulted a member of _my_ team. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it!”

“And they won’t be,” Chief soothed. “Once we find them, like I know we will, they’ll pay restitution to us for whatever damage that paint does. Although I’m sure your Cybertronian armor can handle something like that.”

“The fact that we can ‘handle it’ shouldn’t make us pushovers,” Heatwave growled, turning on his heelstruts and stomping toward the platform that would lower him into the Autobot bunker.

“I wonder what type of person would have done something like that,” Boulder was saying when Heatwave approached. “All the humans I’ve seen are really nice!”

“What about Doctor Morocco? And Evan and Miles?” Cody reminded him. “They could have done it.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think hitting Chase with paint balloons would really help any sort of master plan,” Dani remarked.

“Unless there was something _in_ the paint!” Blades fretted. “A microscopic listening device or a hypnotic suggestion—”

“Blades, you can’t get a hypnotic suggestion through topical solutions,” Graham scolded.

Blades liked being right, so he tried to backpedal. “Well…what if it’s something worse? What if they figured out how to give us…like, Cosmic Rust?!” he burst out.

Boulder immediately shuddered and began explaining the virus to a very confused Graham, while Heatwave drifted past them toward the team’s berthroom. There he found Chase with a basin of soapy water and a brush, scrubbing at the stains he could see.

“I’ll wash?” Heatwave offered, priming his water dispensers. Chase nodded his thanks and continued scrubbing while Heatwave hosed him down. After a few rounds of this, Chase approached the reflective surface of the stasis chambers and sighed.

“My Autobot sigil simply refuses to be cleaned.”

They had _stained_ his sigil? Heatwave wordlessly clenched his fists and just _vented_ for a few kliks. When he spoke, he made sure it got Chase’s attention.

**::J’xiw j’qir bye.::**

In the reflection of the glass, Heatwave saw Chase’s optics cycle just a fraction wider before he turned to face him. “I know that, Heatwave.”

“So why aren’t you angry? Why are you so calm about this?” Heatwave demanded.

“You know why. It’s the same reason I’m calm about everything else.”

“Tricurse those scientists and what they did to you,” Heatwave growled. “Even on a whole new planet—”

Chase almost smiled (though if he had Heatwave was certain it would have been a sad one) as he interrupted, “No change in scenery will affect who they made me. You’ve known that since I explained what they had done.”

“How they fragged up your life by emotionally truncating you,” Heatwave stated blatantly, obviously not a question.

“I actually tend to think I—and others like me—have a decent life,” Chase countered.

“Failing to mention how those others like you—mechs like Gears or Red Alert—they ended up offline,” Heatwave snarked bitterly. At Chase’s pointed look at his irreverence, Heatwave rebooted his vocals and tried a different angle. “But whoever threw the paint at you broke the law. That at least makes you a _little_ mad, right?”

Chase considered. “Not at this present time.”

“But I felt it,” Heatwave insisted. “Immediately after it happened, I felt your EM field. It upset you.”

“Yes, it did,” Chase allowed at last. “But I don’t see how my being upset will be constructive in the investigation.”

“Maybe it won’t,” Heatwave agreed. “But I just wanted to know that what I thought was right.” In the lowest of pedal tones, he added as he turned away, “Cos now I have the right to start an investigation of my own.”

“Heatwave,” Chase called, causing the Fire Bot to pause, wondering if somehow he’d been heard.

“What?”

**::Du aakriron.::**

“Yes, I am,” Heatwave agreed firmly as he left the room.

—

It had been two days since that conversation with Chase had happened and still Heatwave was no closer to proving that the three tourist teens had been the ones to assault him. The Police Bot’s discolored sigil was a constant reminder of his failure and he couldn’t look at Chase without being frustrated.

It was also difficult not to blame Chief Burns for the lack of justice in that area. The humans had their own laws which Chase was very willing to follow, even if it meant openly accepting the debasement of everything he was.

Heatwave could see where he was coming from. Chase wasn’t letting his identity be debased; he was an Autobot and his assumed role was to stay undercover, so that was exactly what he would do. But Heatwave was an Autobot _leader_ and his role was to protect his teammates. Why couldn’t anyone understand that?

“If Chase wants it this way, he’ll just…have it this way,” Boulder had proclaimed ruefully.

“Besides, wouldn’t the hate on us get so much worse if the truth came out?” Blades pointed out.

Their human partners had said the same with different words; even Cody was hesitant to act without an authority figure’s permission. It seemed hopeless, like no one was on his side.

“I think you’re right.”

Heatwave almost swerved out of the lane in his surprise. “You do?” When he adjusted his review mirror, Kade looked wholly serious.

“Completely. Sure, there are times to look the other way and then there are times to get in someone’s face.” When they stopped at a red light, Kade leaned an elbow against the windowsill and explained, “When Graham was about…mm, ten or eleven?…our mom wanted me to walk him home every day. I started noticing bruises—new ones every few days—but he never wanted to talk about it. Not even Dad could get it out of him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Then one day I found him in our meeting spot with a bloody nose and his glasses broken, snapped in half. I got a name out of him and I snapped the guy responsible in half.”

Heatwave hoped Kade didn’t mean literally, though from the cold gleam in his eyes Heatwave couldn’t be sure. “You acted when you knew that enough was enough,” he mused as the light turned green and he accelerated. “How did you know?”

“Because when I found Graham, he was crying. He had never cried those other times.”

“Huh,” Heatwave muttered, remembering the fluctuation of Chase’s EM field and his admission that he was upset. “Strong kid.”

“Yeah, he is.” Kade looked up suddenly. “Hey, smoke at eleven o’clock!”

Trying to push the distracting thoughts away, Heatwave flipped on his sirens and sped toward the scene, startled to find that the source was an open-burning, _illegal_ trash fire. And standing around it…

Transforming almost before Kade leapt out, Heatwave shouted, “Power up and energize!” Somehow this time he felt more powerful than any time before as he primed his dispenser and sprayed. The first substance to be launched was collision foam which conveniently cemented the three familiar culprits in place before they could bolt. Secondly, water conveniently drenched every area of their persons but not the flaming barrel. Finally, fire-retardant foam extinguished the fire and caked the howling, cursing teenage boys beyond recognition.

“Top that for disgracing someone,” Heatwave snapped, causing Kade to whirl around and frantically make a slashing motion across his throat.

One of the boys, flapping his arms and digging suds out of his ears, coughed, “What’d you say, man?!”

“I said, uh…sorry, weird glitches on the dispenser,” Kade proclaimed, running a hand through his hair and making a discreet thumbs-up signal behind his head to his partner. “Fire Bot, please call the Police Bot to arrest these three for an open-burning trash fire.”

“Understood,” Heatwave acknowledged happily, pulling his visor down over his optics.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about protective!Heatwave and Kade, in case you didn't notice :D
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Please comment and tell me what you thought!! I'd love to hear from you.


End file.
